I've done the same as Sheila, and I still think it's the right thing to do. If you can't see it, you can't type it. You also can't assume correct alphabetical order - I remember a forename Willian coming before William. OK, so it was probably a misprint, but Willian is what it said, and if the 'n' had been obscured I believe Willia_ or Willia* would have been 'correct' and William 'incorrect'. Best wishes, Peter Dauncey South London, UK ----- Extract from Original Message ----- From: <SRILEY145@aol.com> I recently had a scan which had a line running down the first column mostly through the forenames. For instance in the name 'William' the first letters 'Wi' were missing leaving 'lliam'. I could figure out that this ought to be 'William' but because I could not see the first two letters I TWYS, thus the first column had either * or _ inserted in the forenames down its length. Now of course I can see that I could have typed 'William' because the name was in the right alphabetical order and the 'lliam' bit was sufficient to tell me that the forename was William.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Dauncey" <peter@dauncey54.freeserve.co.uk> > You also can't assume correct alphabetical order - I remember a forename > Willian coming before William. I have had surnames that were not in alphabetical order - shepperd came after shepphard Lynda